Description: A "war symphony" with a difference: instead of grim, pounding, threatening music representing invasion, struggle, resistance and final victory, Merikanto's 1918 symphony is the symphony of a winner almost from the start. There is some struggle in the opening Allegro energico but the following scherzo is mostly high spirits and light. The Largo is not desolate; in fact, it looks ahead to Merikanto's later period, harmonically influenced by the Russian avant-garde of the period while the finale is straight-ahead positiveness. But then, while the rest of Europe was bleeding profusely at the end of World War I, the Finns were celebrating their freshly-won independence! Ekho is a ten-minute vocal tone-poem from 1922, building on the daring harmonies of the symphony's slow movement and hinting at French Impressionism. Finnish-English texts. Anu Komsi (soprano), Turku Philharmonic Orchestra; Petri Sakari. Finnish-English texts. Anu Komsi (soprano), Turku Philharmonic Orchestra; Petri Sakari.